Charles Schreyvogel Biography

Charles Schreyvogel (1861-1912) was an American painter of Western subject matter in the days of the disappearing frontier. Schreyvogel was especially interested in military life.

He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Paul and Theresa Schreyvogel, and grew up in a poor family of German immigrant shopkeepers on the Lower East Side of New York. Schreyvogel was unable to afford art classes and he taught himself to draw.

When Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show came to Brooklyn in 1894, Schreyvogel visited to sketch. He went on to become famous for his depictions of the American West, although he did much of his work in his studio (or its rooftop) in decidedly non-Western Hoboken.

In 1901, his painting My Bunkie was awarded the Thomas Clarke Prize at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. He suddenly became recognised and earned what seemed like overnight fame.

He died in Hoboken in 1912 and is buried in Flower Hill Cemetery, North Bergen, New Jersey.

Works by Schreyvogel are included in the collections of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the Sid Richardson Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma.